Higher TripAdvisor Scores Show Hotel Beacon Guests Value Personal Service, Fast Request Fulfillment
February 6, 2018 – When the Hotel Beacon completed its most recent upgrade it wanted a way to fulfill guest requests fast. The busy 278-room Upper West Side property installed Guestware to seamlessly connect guests with hotel team members to improve the guest experience. The result today is higher TripAdvisor scores and a new ranking in the top 60 best NYC hotels.
“Our guests are experienced travelers who expect a comfortable stay. Many are here for the Metropolitan Opera and New York Ballet. Guestware helps us respond to any request for service very quickly,” said Assistant General Manager Vincent Hardy. Guestware’s automated rapid response system streamlines the property’s operations and improves the guest experience. The Hotel Beacon replaced its manual log sheets and radios with Guestware’s mobile auto-dispatch app. It uses WIFI enabled Android devices to communicate guests’ requests, create action tickets, and assign staff responsibility for resolution.
“Hotel Beacon’s engineers and housekeeping staff can also generate rapid response service tickets in Guestware from their mobile device or from the hotel phones in the guest rooms,” Vincent Hardy said. “The system automatically sends the request to the appropriate person’s mobile phone for action. This lets us resolve many issues before the guest notices something is wrong. Thanks to Guestware report tracking we identified that several rooms had issues with shower curtains. This led our housekeepers to proactively check bathrooms regularly.”
TripAdvisor scores are crucial in the New York City market. “We monitor TripAdvisor daily,” Hardy said. “Our scores are steadily climbing and Guestware was instrumental in our stronger results. Today we are ranked as the 60th best hotel out of 471 NYC properties. Our goal is to be in the top 30 this year. Ranking is based on service and property upkeep. We work continuously on our property and recently repainted and detailed the rooms.”
Guest recognition is an important part of Hotel Beacon’s appeal. “Guestware interfaces with our PMS so we imported our PMS guest history to kick start our recognition program. This creates a repeat guest database in Guestware that simplifies recognition,” Vincent Hardy said. “If a guest reported an issue during a previous visit, it is logged in Guestware and appears on our pre-arrival report. I personally review this report every morning to ensure we recognize each guest to ensure any past issue does not happen again.
“The Hotel Beacon is a perfect example of how a property can leverage guest service and internal communication to increase business,” said Mike Benjamin, Guestware vice president. “Vincent Hardy was instrumental in successfully applying Guestware’s solution to the Hotel Beacon’s operation. It is win-win when a property responds to guest requests quickly with a system that simplifies operations at the same time.”
